Ep 124: Shane Brennan on Xenophon and Leadership

School of War

Shane Brennan, Associate Professor of History and Classics at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and author of Xenophon's Anabasis: A Socratic History,  joins the show to talk about why the Anabasis remains an important part of the Western canon of military writing.

Shane Brennan, Associate Professor of History and Classics at the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh and author of <a href="https://a.co/d/gFWWW3m">Xenophon's Anabasis: A Socratic History</a>, joins the show to talk about why the Anabasis remains an important part of the Western canon of military writing.▪️Times     •      01:30 Introduction     •      02:05 Dubai to Bangladesh    •      05:37 Xenophon’s start      •      09:25 Several levels of failure    •      12:37 “An exemplary Socratic student”      •      14:40 Fighting for the Persians    •      17:18 Cyrus the Younger        •      20:46 A leader emerges      •      29:41 “How was he so right?”     •      36:43 Matterhorn    •      38:33 Exile    •      42:01 An instruction on leadership    •      44:16 “There is always something there…” <a href="https://bit.ly/41EloxN">Follow along </a> on Instagram Find a transcript of today’s episode on our <a href="http://schoolofwar.substack.com/">School of War Substack</a> Follow the link to buy the book - <a href="https://a.co/d/gFWWW3m">Xenophon's Anabasis: A Socratic History</a>

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This podcast seeks to learn what war teaches. There has been a steady decline in the study of military history and its associated theoretical discipline, strategy.This podcast seeks to fill that gap through in-depth interviews on military and diplomatic history.&nbsp; Our guests have included former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, the Cold War historian John Lewis Gaddis, and China Select Committee chairman Mike Gallagher. We discuss the battlefield commanders, diplomats, strategists, policymakers, and statesmen who have had to make wartime decisions in the ancient and modern eras.The subject of an episode may be an historical battle, campaign, or conflict; the conduct of policy in the course of a major international incident; the work of a famous strategist; the nature of a famous weapon; or the legacy of an important military commander or political leader.&nbsp;&nbsp; Aaron MacLean is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He has worked as a foreign policy advisor and legislative director to Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and spent seven years in the U.S. Marine Corps. <a href="https://schoolofwar.substack.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Visit our Substack for episode transcripts</a><a href="https://www.instagram.com/school.of.war/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Follow along on Instagram</a>